Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Good morning, everyone, and thank you for being here.
I have three questions for Mr. Rigby. First of all, I'd like to go back to the matter raised by my Liberal Party colleague about detentions, which are your responsibility. It has been brought to my attention more than once that those persons being detained in holding centers include mothers and their children.
I'd like to know whether that's true or whether it's an urban legend. And what do you think about incarcerating children? I'm willing to believe they're waiting to be deported, but I was also told they could be detained for long periods of time.
Furthermore, complaints from my constituents have often been brought to my attention. Those complaints concerned treatment at the border based to a large degree on racial profiling. These individuals were questioned either because they were of Arab extraction or because they looked Arabic. They could be Latin American, but had a certain type of face and were questioned endlessly, whereas they were Canadian citizens who were innocent and who were simply going to the United States on vacation and were coming back.
There is one last subject. In 2007, we looked at the issue of arming border officers. One argument was repeated in favour of officers bearing arms: when information was received from the United States to the effect that vehicles were going to cross the Canadian border carrying weapons or drugs, border officers could not intervene because they feared for their safety. For example, the RCMP could not intervene at that point to make arrests or to take action. Consequently, the need to bear arms was justified on the ground that it would enable officers to proceed with arrests and to intervene when this type of information was brought to the attention of border officers.
Do you have any figures? Have you noticed a change in the number of seizures or arrests compared to when your officers—you now have 750—had no weapons? Do you have any figures on that?